TiberiusAudley

Join Date 05/2008

Status Effects, Buffs, and Empathic Transferrance

One of my favorite game mechanics in any game with RPG elements most definitely has to be status effects. I'm not sure of what form in which these exist in Demigod (though, I assume they DO exist in some form by the While-Immolated skills from the Torchbearer), but I would love to see an Assassin (and maybe some recruitable from Generals) that makes use of several Status Effects.

Burn damage over time, massive slowdown of advancing units over an area, blindness to reduce accuracy of archers or confuse melee units caused by the focused ray of light from the Rook...sure, they all sound great...

Hireable mages of some sort with the ability to cause units to fall asleep, front-line berserkers with the ability to stun groups with a massive swing, archers with alchemic arrows that release clouds of poisons, or harpies with a shrill scream that deafens the General's units, preventing them from taking orders for a time.

Beyond negative status effects, positive effects are also a great addition to games with RPG elements, and buffers and support skills (Green Mages, as Final Fantasy calls them now) are always a welcome addition. Barbaric warcries, holy auras, or mystic enchantments -- whatever it takes to raise stats or morale of your forces to give them the much-needed edge in battle -- are generally great bolsters to your side in a fight...

But what if there were an Empathic Assassin lurking nearby? You unleash all your boosts to your forces...only to see them take effect on an enemy Assassin as well -- as a result of his passive ability -- Clairsentience. Not only are you helping yourself, you've become a Benedict Arnold through no fault of your own, setting up the enemy Assassin to rip through your newly-boosted forces.

So you'll try to fight him (and the cavalry that rode in with him) off with some of the aforementioned negative status effects, eh? Well, you may wanna watch out for Empathic Contagion. Status effects of teammates' nearby units get completely absorbed by the Assassin, taking a negative toll on him alone, then projected onto his nearby foes.

If your Assassin is affected, and you think you want to chug that Elixir that cures all status effects, you better hope your newly discovered enemy isn't using the skill Clairgustance, where any expendable potion used within a certain radius of the Assassin also takes effect on him...

Beware the Echidna, lurking in wait to steal your spirit and soul.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I really like how GuildWars had standardized "conditions"

It would be nice if "Burning" was always, say, 5% of health per second and short durations.
While "poisoned" was always 1% of health per second, but 5-10x longer durations than "Burning" usually is.

It makes it easy to keep track of and compare things.

And I agree with the sentiment of most of your post. I like buffs and debuffs a lot.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yeah the standardized Conditions in Guild Wars made the game really easy to understand that mechanic, and you could actively compare skills to one another without breaking out your Abacus. If they have things like this, Burning!!!! like the torchbearer probably gets this would be an easy way to implement it, from a user friendly perspective of course.

the Guild wars conditions were,

Blind, Cripple, Dazed, Burning, Poison, Diesease, Weakness, Bleeding

Getting to far into the Rock-paper-Scissors-Jackhammer-Battle Tank-Apache-Tactical nuclear strike gets... well confusion especially if there is no visual way to tell what someone has

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yeah with 900 skills or whatever.. made things simpler

Guild Wars was my favorite game fora time. Small guild I was in was in the top 20 one season.

One of the biggest draws with RPG's for me is the skill set. Guild Wars stomps every other game there. The skills are just so amazing.

It would be nice if you saw your demigod lit on fire by something you knew exactly what it was doing.. %5 damage a second and it'd end fast, or something like that. Or if you saw your demigod turn green from poison or whatever, or stars over it's head. Presumably there could be many skills that burn, and it's less confusing if the burn effect is the same. You don't need to hover over the debuff icon and see exactly what DPS it's doing.

Successfully updated karma reason!

You don't need to hover over the debuff icon and see exactly what DPS it's doing.

I assume you're referring to any game by Blizzard where you have x poison damage over y seconds, that can be changed by so many different variables that you may end up losing track of them or have no clue how potent the poison by which you are being attacked actually is?

If so, I agree -- status effects need to be easily recognized, to the point that when you see the effect, you know exactly what's happening to you. If you have to pause your actions to break out a graphing calculator just so you can find the summation of the rate at which you're losing health and the rate at which you're being damaged by outside sources to find the exact time to use your Zomg Ubar Healz0r item without dying, then combat isn't very visceral and status effects become more of an annoyance than...well, an annoyance.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yes that's exactly what I mean.

Instead you'd see the icon and a timer.. you'd already know how much poison damage does, as it wouldn't vary skill by skill. You'd know how long it lasts by the number over the icon.

Only variable I'd see besides that is whether or not the poison or fire is contagious.

Most of the DoT debuffs could be poison, burning, or open wounds.. and each would do a set damage(i'd do a percentage since I assume some Demigods have vastly different Hps.. but set degen works too probably.) and the skill just change how long it lasts. It makes it really simple to just glance and know what is up.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Green mages... man I hated these guys. Why sacrifice a slot in your party for a status effect that 95% of the time, the target didn't live long enough to make said status worth casting.

In any case, Demigod will be a different game and I see status effects as a viable strategy. I'm not sure if making certain demigods status effect only unless they can be viable in a 1v1. In other words, if a Demigod is vying for ascension but is only good at helping/hampering other demi's, then he's not worth of ascending.

Teamplay is great, but at some point, each of the demi's will need to be able to fend for themselves.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well having a class or demigod devoted entirely to Support / undermining support is retarded. But who says Torchbearer can't light someone on fire. Or maybe the unclean Beast doesn't get a poison or disease(spreadable?) These are all conditions or status effects that would negatively effect your enemy in some way. But the characters who get them can still fend for themselves, it's just an added thing.

Your not going to have someone who can have access to them all but you might have several demigods that can overlap. Maybe someone else or an item gets a burn effect?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yeah, if you make one entirely devoted to support, then you need a class that counters it by removing those from allies, or nearly every or every Demigod needs a counter to it to at least counter half of them or so.

Then it can become too much of "This side has X,Y,Z vs A,B,C. XYZ is so superior against ABC that it's practically impossible for ABC to win. ABC team quits."

There would probabbly be a fine line where such a purely buff/debuff class was either underpowered or severely overpowered.

I say this because you must assume said Demigod could win in 1vs1. Doesn't every Demigod need a decent chance to SOMEHOW win 1vs1?(not that they need to win by running straight at the enemy and exchanging hits and mashing skill buttons until either dies, but win SOMEHOW with some sort of strategy) Which would mean he can buff himself so much, and debuff the enemy so much, that he'll win with just his normal attacks.

Well then what happens when said buffs are used on an ally with superior attacking skills? They become insanely powerful, presumably, and your debuffed enemy would be so helpless.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I'm not sure if making certain demigods status effect only unless they can be viable in a 1v1. In other words, if a Demigod is vying for ascension but is only good at helping/hampering other demi's, then he's not worth of ascending. Teamplay is great, but at some point, each of the demi's will need to be able to fend for themselves.

Oh, by no means does the Demigod idea mentioned in the last four paragraphs of my post have to be purely support -- and if you read carefully -- you'll see he's more of an anti-support...any and every support skill is used by that demigod against others and/or for himself (or herself)...

As for Demigods always being able to win a 1vs1 -- I agree. There needs to be enough balance that Player Skill can always triumph in a one-versus-one battle between Demigods. Of course, sometimes a 1v1 Strategy happens to be "Hey, I think I'll choose to let some minions fight for me...let me go enslave and subsequently buff them to the point that they will wear you down enough for me to slip in and finish you off by the time you are finished mowing through my castle fodder, Rook." So even a support character could triumph in a 1v1 battle between Assassins...by not allowing the fight to remain 1v1.

It's like bringing a gun to a sword fight.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Any kind of added depth is good, as long as it does not become too muddled. That's my point of view regarding status effects.

Btw Tiberius, it's good to see you here. Was hoping I'd participate in a beta with you in it again after Mythos tanked.

- PossiblyImpossible a.k.a. Raskolnikov (Mythos Alpha / Beta)

Successfully updated karma reason!

Tiberius, oh yeah the demigod considered weakest in 1vs1 should be the one considered strongest in 1vs1 (as in, one on one direct fight) if the formers skill is considerably higher. Of course.

I feel DotA leaves too much up to items and theres too much RPS for my taste.. Roles is one thing, RPS another. Granted, you get those items because of your earlier game strategy, it just feels so slippery slope to me.

I think the way to make a demigod that is primarily like described above would be to give it a good root and make the NPC creeps do extra damage to them. If you could snare them and let creeps do a lot of your damage that presumably wouldn't change the balance in team games since you still have the same creeps on lanes(I'm assuming.)

Any kind of added depth is good, as long as it does not become too muddled. That's my point of view regarding status effects.

I certainly agree, that's why me and some otehrs siad it'd be nice to see some standardized ones like Guild Wars where if you see a poison cloud or whatever effect you know exactly what it's doing, the skill that put the effect on you would just be like changing the duration, and you'd see a ticker when it's on you for how long it'd last.

If these are mostly used then it's not too much memorizing for the extra dozen or so "unique" debuffs.

It was good in GuildWars to see a condition and know whats up. But they also had like 150 unique debuffs to memorize so you knew what it was when you saw the icon pop up.

Successfully updated karma reason!

These ideas remond me very much of another AoS style map called DoE which 7 standedized conditions, and all the heros manipulated them(wheather the hero manipulated 1, 2, or all 7 and how is what made them unique), makes for a cool game I must say.

Successfully updated karma reason!

All the acronyms make me LOL and LMM and ROFl and want me to take a AK to the chest of a VIP on the DL to the QT. You know what i mean?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting PossiblyImpossible,

reply 10

Any kind of added depth is good, as long as it does not become too muddled. That's my point of view regarding status effects.

Btw Tiberius, it's good to see you here. Was hoping I'd participate in a beta with you in it again after Mythos tanked.

- PossiblyImpossible a.k.a. Raskolnikov (Mythos Alpha / Beta)

Mythos tanking made me seek another good game to get behind. This immediately caught my eye (actually, been keeping my eye on it a while now)...

Of course, don't rule out Travis and Max's new venture, Runic Games from producing an amazing game...

But my idea threads will never go away, no matter what happens

~Sulfuric/TiberiusAudley

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yea, I'm interested to see what Runic Games comes up with. I'm hoping if and when they do a Beta that they will show some kind of preference towards Mythos testers. It'd be a shame if all of us who spent so much time testing that game couldn't get into their next beta.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I thought Mythos was great for a free game, but I wouldn't pay for it.(Too shallow)

It's definitely sad.

Successfully updated karma reason!